


Not Quite an Ugly Duckling

by holyhael



Series: Crooked Soul [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Female Dean Winchester, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Makeup, Pre-Series, Self-Discovery, Trans Character, Trans Dean, Trans Female Character, Transphobia, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:30:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4055002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyhael/pseuds/holyhael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Even He can make mistakes,” Mommy says.</p><p>Dean buries his head into his mommy’s chest. “I wish I was supposed to be a girl.”</p><p>Mommy pats his back until all his tears are gone and his nose isn’t as runny. Her eyes are wet and her eye makeup’s messy like she’s cried too.</p><p>“It’s okay, sweetie,” she says, and her voice is weird like Dean’s is after he cries and his throat feels funny. “You can be a girl if you want. It doesn’t matter what body God put you in. If you want to be a girl, you can be a girl. That's who you are.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite an Ugly Duckling

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for transphobia, john winchester being an asshole, gender dysphoria, self harm, parental arguments, and canonical death.
> 
> thank you [sam](http://www.scull-not-skull.tumblr.com) for betaing <33
> 
> i am not trans myself, so if there are any glaring faults, please tell me.
> 
> forgive me for the horrible title. it may change

Dean stares sadly out the window. The stupid rain is coming down like cats and dogs, although Dean doesn’t see either cats or dogs outside, so he doesn’t really get why Daddy said so before going to work. It’s an expression he said, ruffling Dean’s hair. Then he said Dean needed a hair cut. “It’s getting too long. Your friends are going to start calling you a girl.”

Dean doesn’t understand a lot of what his daddy says, but he nodded and said okay, and then Daddy left.

Now Dean’s bored. His coloring book is all finished and there’s nothing else to do. If he goes outside he’ll catch a cold, but if he doesn’t do something now he will die of boredom. It happened to Alexis’ grandfather last autumn. Dean doesn’t want to end up like Alexis’ grandfather.

He drops from his chair at the dining table, leaving his coloring book behind. Mommy will play with him if he asks.

Dean runs through the house, up the stairs, and down the hallway until he gets to Mommy’s and Daddy’s room. He walks inside but Mommy isn’t there. Mommy is growing a little sibling in her tummy, and if she isn’t watching TV with Dean and Daddy or cooking, she’s reading books in bed. But the bed is empty.

“Mommy!” Dean calls out, looking around the room like he missed her the first time. Where is she, where’d she go, Mommy-

“In the bathroom, pumpkin!” Mommy shouts, and Dean breathes relief. His mommy is okay.

“What’re you doing?” Dean asks loudly on his way. The bathroom door is slightly open and the light is on. He pushes open the door and sees his mommy leaning her large belly over the counter with something in her hands. She looks down at Dean and smiles.

“How’s my Deannie Bean doing?” Mommy asks. She puts down her thing and crouches until she is Dean’s size. Her eyes look funny and her lips are weird.

“What’s wrong with your face?” he asks, scrunching up his face. He points at her too-red lips. They’re the same color as his favorite crayon.

Mommy smiles and shakes her head. “Nothing, sweetie. It’s makeup.”

“Makeup?”

Mommy nods. “I put it on sometimes to feel beautiful.”

Dean looks at his mommy’s face and frowns a little bit. “But you’re always beautiful!”

Mommy chuckles. Her hand cups Dean’s cheek.

“Thank you, sweetie,” she says. “This is a little different though. You know how Batman puts on his mask before he saves Gotham?” Dean nods. “This is sort of like that.”

“But Batman does it to hide his face,” Dean says. “He can’t let anyone know his true identity.”

“Well, it’s not a perfect metaphor.” Mommy kisses Dean’s forehead with her too-red lips, and it feels weird. Dean reaches up to rub the spot and then looks back at his hand. It’s a little red from Mommy’s lips. Mommy laughs again. When she stops, she looks sad. Dean doesn’t like that. He hugs her tight until she laughs again a little. It’s not the same as it was before. Dean leans back and looks at his mommy. The baby brother in her stomach makes Dean have to crane his neck until it hurts.

“I know you think I’m beautiful,” she says. Her hand is on his shoulder and her thumb is stroking him. She smiles that weird, sad smile again. “Thank you so much for that. It’s just… some days it’s hard to believe, and you need to be reminded again.”

“I can remind you!” Dean offers.

“Thank you, but it’s something that I have to do myself,” Mommy says. “I have to think I’m beautiful.”

“And the makeup makes you beautiful?”

“It makes me feel beautiful,” Mommy says with a nod. “Do you understand?”

Dean thinks for a long moment. His mommy is already beautiful without the weird colors. But if it makes her happy, Dean will understand. He doesn’t like to see his mommy sad.

“You’re happy with the makeup,” Dean says.

“Yes.”

“And beautiful.”

Mommy smiles. “Yes.”

“Can I be beautiful, too?”

Mommy doesn’t answer him right away. Did he say something wrong? He just wants to feel beautiful like his mom. Dean is about to say so when Mommy says, “Of course you can.” And she smiles.

“Yay!” Dean grins.

“Where do you want to start?”

Mommy stands up again, one hand under her belly and the other on the counter. Her belly gets bigger every day. Daddy says she’s about to pop.

_“Like a balloon?” Dean asked._

_“Not quite,” Daddy answered and went outside to put dinner on the grill._

Dean looks up at the counter. There’s so much set out! Long sticks, short sticks, circles, tins, brushes, tubes, bottles, and pencils. Dean doesn’t know what they all do, but close to him is a very small bottle of red and he reaches up to hold it.

“What’s this?” Dean asks. It looks creamy.

“It’s nail polish,” Mommy says. She takes the small bottle from Dean and twists the thick, black top. The nail polish turns into two things: a pot of the red stuff and the top which has a brush attached to the bottom. “You put it on your nails. Wanna try?”

“Yeah!” he exclaims.

“I have a few colors. Which one do you want?”

Mommy shows him all of the colors she has. All of the bottles look very similar, and some of the colors look the same. At the very end of the line is a color that looks like Dean’s wagon. He points excitedly to that one.

“That one!”

“Okay, how about you have a seat on the toilet and put your hand up here.” Dean does as she says. Mommy brings the nail polish closer and arrange Dean’s hand until it’s flat on the counter and his fingers are spread out as far as they can go. “That’s good. I’ll start painting now.”

The nail polish smells strong and nasty, but Mommy says the smell will go away when the polish dries. She takes the nail polish top between her fingers and touches the brush against the lip of the bottle until the brush isn’t too wet. Then she runs the brush over Dean’s nail. The red is glossy and cool. When Mommy is done with his first finger, she blows gently on it.

“Why are you doing that?” Dean asks.

“To dry it,” Mommy says.

“Oh. So it’ll stop smelling bad?”

“It won’t right away,” Mommy says. “But soon.”

All of his nails get painted. The polish feels weird and heavy on his nails but it’s also nice. He has color where he didn’t have color before. And it’s cool! Why don’t people always put on nail polish? Maybe they don’t like the smell? There’s no other reason people can’t like nail polish.

Some of the polish gets on Dean’s skin, but Mommy says it’s okay.

“The brush is just too big for your tiny nails.”

“Are there smaller brushes?” Dean asks.

“Absolutely. We can go to the store when the rain lets up and we can get brushes that are just your size. And you can get your own nail polish. Whatever color you want.”

“Yay.” Dean’s cheeks hurt because he’s smiling too much. Already he understands what Mommy meant when she said she feels beautiful with makeup on. He feels beautiful. He doesn’t know if he’s beautiful like Mommy without makeup, but he’s definitely beautiful with it on. And he doesn’t even have that stuff Mommy has on her lips and around her eyes!

When all of his nails are wagon red, Dean still can’t move his hands because the polish is still wet. Mommy caps the nail polish.

“What next?”

“What’s that stuff?” He looks over at a tube as tall as one of Mommy’s fingers, but it’s much thicker.

“This?” Mommy points out the tube, and Dean nods. “It’s lipstick. It’s what makes my lips so red.” She grabs all of the lipstick tubes. The shapes are all different: some are round, some art square, and some are triangles; some are longer than the others, and some are thinner. “There’s a lot of stuff people put on their lips. Lipstick, lipgloss, lip balm, lip stain.”

“You put lip balm on my lips when they get chapped,” Dean remembers.

“Yeah, but lip balm is different from the rest. It goes on the same but it looks very different.”

Mommy takes one of the lubes and unscrews it. It’s like the nail polish with a brush at the bottom of the lid. “This is lipgloss. It makes your lips shiny.”

“What about lipstick?”

Mommy recaps the lipgloss and gets another tube. Instead of unscrewing, the cap lifts off with a pull to show a pink stick. It looks like a crayon without the paper but thicker and softer and smoother.

“Pretty,” Dean says.

“Mhmm.” The next tube Mommy shows him looks like the lipstick and the nail polish bottle at the same time. She unscrews the cap. A pink ball blocks anything from coming off, but when Mommy rolls it on her hand it leaves pink behind.

“Which one would you like?”

Dean looks over the different lip makeups. He wants to grab them all and open them and see what color they are, but if he moves his hands he’ll mess up the nail polish.

“What one do you have?” Dean asks. “On your lips?”

Mommy takes a triangle stick. “This one.”

“Can I have that one?”

“Of course.”

Mommy grabs something else before she sits on the edge of the tub. She turns Dean around and positions his hands over his knees, so now Dean is facing his mommy. “We probably should’ve held off the nail polish until last,” Mommy says. “Oh well. Keep your hands still, okay, pumpkin?”

“Okay.”

Mommy uncaps the lipstick and holds it up to Dean’s face. The lipstick has a weird smell to it like the nail polish, but this isn’t as strong or sharp.

“The best way to put on lipstick,” Mommy says, “is to have your mouth open. Like this. Can you do it?”

Dean makes the same face Mommy just did, like he’s about to yawn. Mommy tells him good job and puts the lipstick to his lips. It’s thick and waxy, but the stick runs over his lips smoothly. Mommy first colors his bottom lip then his top. When she’s done, she tells Dean to pop his lips together and smile, which he does. His lips stick together a little bit but not too much.

“I got some on your skin. Open your mouth again like before.”

Mommy puts a wet wipe to his face, right next to his lips. She rubs it where the lipstick got off his lips. “There, that’s better.”

“How did you get your eyes like that?” Dean asks when the lipstick is capped. “That pinky color. And your eyelashes look really dark.”

“I used eyeshadow to make my eyelids pink,” Mommy says. She stands up and gets a square plastic case. The top is clear so Dean can see the quarter sized circles of color inside. Some of the circles have been used more than the others. Like the pink colors have been used so much that in the center of their circles there’s dark blue like the case. The colors in the circles are paler than the nail polish or lipstick colors, and they aren’t liquidy or waxy. They look more like Dean’s sidewalk chalk, but much prettier and they have really, really tiny sparkles in them.

“The blue is pretty,” Dean says. There’s a whole row of blues. None of them have been used much.

“Which blue would you like?” Mommy asks.

Dean points to the darkest at the end, making sure he doesn’t touch anything or else his nail polish will be ruined. “That one.”

“Okay, close your eyes and raise your eyebrows. This might tickle a bit.”

Dean feels his mommy sit back down on the edge of the tub, and he feels her getting in closer to his face. Anticipation tingles in his spine.

A small, solid brush runs over his eyelid, smooth not like if he ran his finger over his eyelid; his eyelid doesn’t drag. The brush is really light and doesn’t feel like it has hair on it. Keeping still like his mommy asked is hard because he keeps wanting to blink and move his eyes, but he does his best. His other eyelid is brushed like the first, very gently.

“Open your eyes now,” Mommy says, and Dean does.  “I have some sparkles if you’d like to put those on too.”

“Yes please!”

This time Mommy uses her finger to powder the sparkles on his eyelids. The sparkles come from a small, clear pot and are a lot smaller than the ones Dean uses at craft time.

Mommy puts mascara on him next. The tube looks like the lipgloss tubes, but instead of having a pad at the end of the wand, the mascara has a small, bristled brush. Dean has to open his mouth like he did with the lipstick and look up while Mommy brushes his eyelashes. It’s a little scary having that black brush right next to his eyes, but Mommy doesn’t poke his eyes out. She only does his top eyelashes because the bottom ones are too small and she doesn’t want to accidentally get Dean’s eye, and he likes that.

There’s another makeup called blush that Mommy has. She has six of them, and they all come in their own large, round case. The cases open and close like the eyeshadow.

“Would you like one of these? They’ll color your cheeks.”

“That one.” All of the blushes are pink and close to the color of Mommy’s skin. The one Dean points out reminds him of a balloon he had at his last birthday party. It lasted longer than all of the other ones, and he tied to his bed until it shrank and fell to the floor and he accidentally stepped on it and popped it.

The blush is swept onto his cheeks with a very large, fluffy brush. The hairs of it tickle.

Mommy has a pencil that will darken eyebrows. Dean’s eyebrows are very, very light, almost like he doesn’t have them at all. Mommy has to lift his bangs up to draw on his eyebrows.

“Almost done. Would you like some perfume?”

Dean nods, and Mommy sprays some flowery smelling stuff on him.

“That’s all the makeup I have,” Mommy says then.

“I want to look in the mirror!” Dean says.

“Okay. Your nails are still a little wet, don’t forget.”

Dean makes sure his hands don’t touch anything, not his clothes, not the counter, not his mommy. He stands in front of the mirror to see his reflection. He’s big enough that he doesn’t need his stool anymore, but he still needs to stand on his tiptoes.

“That’s me,” Dean says, staring at himself make the words with his colored lips.

Mommy smiles. “That’s you.”

“It doesn’t look like me,” he says, but the reflection makes the same words he does at the same time again, so it really must be him and not some trick. “I’m a princess.”

Mommy hugs him from behind and kisses his pink cheek. She looks happier than Dean remembers her ever being. “The beautifulest.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

Dean turns to look at his mommy and not just the reflection of her. Nobody can be as beautiful as his mommy. Even the beautiful girls on TV aren’t as beautiful as Mommy is.

“Thank you, pumpkin.” She kisses him again on his forehead, then laughs at the smudge of lipstick she’s left behind. Dean doesn’t really mind it, but Mommy cleans it away with the same wipe she used to clean Dean’s mouth earlier. “Now how about I make us some grilled cheeses? I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

Dean grins up at his mommy as they make their way downstairs. Dean is still careful with his nail polished fingers even though Mommy says they should be dry enough by now. They’ll certainly be dry by the time the grilled cheeses are done, she says.

When Daddy comes home from work, Dean and Mommy are watching TV together, Dean curled up with his head on Mommy’s stomach and her arm around him. The baby kicks inside sometimes, and Dean likes to kiss him like Daddy does.

“I’m home!” Daddy says when he gets inside. His boots squeak on the floor. He walks over to the back of the couch and kisses Mommy’s head. “How was your guys’ day?”

“Great!” Dean exclaims. He gets up and turns around to look and his daddy and show him how beautiful he is. Dean grins and says, “I’m a princess!”

Daddy looks down at Dean without saying a word. He doesn’t look happy but he doesn’t look sad either. Isn’t Daddy happy for Dean? Dean is beautiful like Mommy is.

“Mary,” Daddy says. His voice is hard.

Mommy sighs and turns to Dean. “Pumpkin, can you go upstairs? Your daddy and I need to talk.”

Whenever Mommy says that with that voice she and Daddy argue. Dean doesn’t like when they argue, and he doesn’t understand much about what they argue about.

But Daddy took one look at Dean with his princess makeup and now there’s an argument. It’s Dean and his makeup. Daddy doesn’t like it, just like he doesn’t like Dean’s coloring books or his favorite TV shows.

Dean wants to cry, but his dad hates it when he cries. He bites the inside of his cheek and nods. As fast as he can, he runs upstairs. He knows he should go to his room and close the door, but he wants to hear what his mommy and daddy are going to say, even if it is ugly. He closes the bathroom door to make it seem like he’s gone to his room, because mommy and daddy won’t start unless they think he can’t hear. A few seconds later, when Dean’s sat down next to the stairs, hidden, daddy speaks.

“What is Dean doing with makeup on?”

“John-”

“That’s not right, Mary,” Daddy says, and Dean does cry then. “I can overlook the princess movies and chalk last year’s Halloween costume up to curiosity, but this is going to far.”

“So what if he likes traditionally feminine things?” Mommy asks. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“He is a man.”

“He’s a boy! He’s four years old!”

Daddy doesn’t say anything. For a few moments Dean thinks they’ve caught on that he’s listening in on them, and a new round of tears wets his eyes. He doesn’t want to do more wrong than he’s already done, but he can’t help it. He’s about to get up and reveal himself when Mommy speaks again.

“Why can’t you accept him the way he is? He’d rather play with dolls than trucks. That’s okay. He likes Cinderella more than Prince Charming, and that’s okay.”

“He’s acting like a girl.”

“Is being a girl a bad thing?”

Daddy sighs. “Fuck. No, Mary.”

Daddy swore. Daddy doesn’t swear unless he thinks Dean can’t hear him.

“It’s just… this isn’t natural. It’s not the way things’re supposed to be. He’s a boy, he should be acting like one. And if this keeps up, what’ll happen to him? Other kids are gonna pick on him. This is bad, Mary.”

Now Mommy sighs. “I know the world isn’t the most accepting place, but I thought this house would be.”

Her words are the last words for a while. Daddy’s boots squeak on the floor, pacing. Dean’s tears have stopped for now.

“I’m just worried about his safety,” Daddy starts.

“No, you want your typically male son,” Mommy says. “That was your first concern. But you know what? You can’t put the girl baby in a pink box and but a boy baby in a blue box and expect them to be happy with all they’re given. The girl wants to be an engineer, not a secretary; the boy likes the PowerPuff Girls more than Transformers.”

“Most boys don’t play with their mother’s makeup. I sure as hell didn’t.”

“Yes, because every little boy follows in the exact same steps you do.”

“Mary, please don’t get angry with me.”

“No! You’re being a dick. Towards your own _child_. How could you?”

“Fuck.”

“John, don’t you dare walk away from this conversation. If you can’t accept Dean, how can I know you’ll accept the new baby?”

It feels like ice has been poured down Dean’s shirt.

“What are the odds that we get two fucked up kids?”

“John!”

“I’m sorry, Mary. I’ll try.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Well, it’s all I’ve got right now. Give me some time.”

Mommy huffs.

“Of course.”

She doesn’t say it like she said to Dean when he first asked to be beautiful. Even though his mommy is the most beautiful person ever, her words come out ugly sounding.

“Don’t be like that, Mary.”

“You can take the couch tonight.”

Daddy sighs. “I’d like to get cleaned up.”

“Go.”

Daddy’s heavy steps start to come up the stairs. Dean rushes to his room and tries to open and close the door as quietly as he can but the click when he lets the doorknob go is loud. He cringes. They’ll know he was listening.

He climbs up onto his bed and stares at the door. Daddy’s footsteps walk right passed it and into his own room, and the door closes. Dean breathes out and lays down like a starfish. The rain hits the roof of the house, and Dean listens to that.

Dean doesn’t know how many hours or minutes pass before Mommy calls for dinner. He rolls off the bed and leaves his room. The house feels much colder than it did before. Before it was warm. Dean tries to be as quiet as possible as he walks downstairs and to the dining room. Daddy is sitting in his spot at the head of the table. Dean’s spot is right next to him, but Dean doesn’t really want to sit next to his daddy right now since he was so mad about Dean and his makeup before. There’s no other place to sit, though. Head down, Dean pulls out his chair and sits down. He doesn’t look up from his empty place setting until Daddy clears his throat.

“Dean,” he starts, and Dean looks up a little. He looks at his daddy’s shirt. It’s the shirt with the funny looking alien on it. Dean’s always liked that funny looking alien. Daddy still doesn’t speak so Dean looks up more to see his daddy’s eyes. They aren’t angry. His mouth turns into a little smile. “You look pretty.”

His dad thinks he’s pretty! Dean bursts into a grin. “You too, daddy.”

Mommy comes in then with lasagna. Daddy serves everyone and says grace before they can eat. Dean can’t wait to eat; it smells so good, just like Mommy’s cooking always does. Except for that one time she made asparagus. That was gross.

When grace is over, they dig in. Dean tears off a piece with his fork and puts it in his mouth but it’s too hot to eat. He puts his fork back down with a pout.

“So I hear you and your mom are gonna go shopping this weekend,” Daddy says, looking over at Dean. Dean looks up at him, shocked still for a moment. His mouth hangs open and he nods.

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s good.” For another long time Daddy doesn’t say anything. Dean looks back at his food and pokes it around, waiting for it to cool off enough. “Any, uh, color of nail polish you really want to get?”

“I like purple,” Dean says. “And blue.” Getting a sudden idea, Dean turns to Mommy. “Do they have sparkly nail polish? Like the sparkles you put on my eyes?”

Mommy smiles at him. “They should, yes.”

Dean smiles happily to himself, slouching in his chair even though it’s not appropriate to do at dinner. Nobody corrects him.

After dinner and after watching TV with his family, Dean goes to the bathroom. He does his business and then goes to wash his hands. One look at the mirror, though, and he’s horrified. The makeup Mommy put on him to make him beautiful is all splotched and messy. It streaks down his cheeks with black claws. The color in his lips faded. Rubbing his eyes smeared blue eyeshadow and sparkles and mascara all over the place. His cheeks are still pink, but he can see his freckles beneath the blush now.

Daddy called him pretty.

He doesn’t look pretty. Not like this. His face is ruined. Tears spring to Dean’s eyes and he buries his face in his hands. He sobs out loud. Daddy lied.

“Dean?” Mommy calls. There’s a knock on the door. Dean sniffles and looks up. But first he sees that his hands are painted with his makeup. It’s smeared from his face to his fingertips, to the side of his fist, his palm. He sniffles again. His nail polish is still beautiful. It’s the only thing that is. “Are you okay, pumpkin?”

“I’m not beautiful anymore!” Dean wails. He opens the door and immediately buries himself in his mommy’s legs and her large belly. Mommy makes a little noise like an _oh_ and bends to hug him tight to her chest. Dean cries onto her shirt and realizes he’s crying his ruined makeup onto her clothes, but when he tries to push away, Mommy holds him closer.

“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” Her hand strokes his hair. She kisses the side of his head. “Makeup doesn’t last forever.”

“But I’m not beautiful anymore,” Dean says. “I’m not like you.”

“Honey, you’re always beautiful. Just like Mommy’s always beautiful.”

Dean sniffs. When he leans back again, this time Mommy lets him. He looks into her eyes. Her makeup is still beautiful. There’s no ugly claws running down her cheeks. Her lipstick is faded too, but not as much as Dean’s.

“How about we clean you up?” Mommy suggests. Dean nods, and Mommy leads him to the upstairs bathroom. Dean sits on the toilet while Mommy grabs a plastic pouch and snatches a wet wipe from it.

“This is makeup remover,” Mommy says. Just like when she got lipstick around his mouth, she wipes everything away. She starts on his cheeks. “You’re not supposed to wear makeup to bed, so we have to take it off.”

Dean sniffs again. His nose is very runny. “Why can’t we wear it all the time?”

“Well, then it starts to smudge,” Mommy says. “You know how bananas get those brown spots when they’ve been sitting on the counter for a few days. Makeup is like that. Sort of.”

“It rots?”

“No, it just gets old.” Dean shuts his eyes so Mommy can wipe away his eyeshadow and mascara. “Plus, if you wear it to bed, it’ll get all over your pillow and your pillow will get all nasty.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, we don’t want that.”

Dean and Mommy don’t speak anymore until all the makeup on Dean’s face is removed and Mommy says, “There,” and puts the dirty wipe in the wastebasket. Dean’s nose is still runny, so he wipes it with his shoulder sleeve. “Will you be okay?”

Dean nods. “Yeah.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re okay.” Mommy kisses his forehead. “Now let’s go back downstairs and you can read us one of your books.”

“Okay.”

Hands held together, Dean and Mommy go downstairs. Daddy looks at them when they’re on the last of the stairs. Dean meets his eyes and he knows his daddy notices that the makeup is gone. Daddy doesn’t say anything about it, though.

Dean grabs his favorite book from the bookshelf and sits between his parents and opens the book. “A mother bird sat on her egg….”

+

The next day, Daddy is gone for work when Dean wakes up. He slept much longer than normal and even missed breakfast, but Mommy still has pancakes for him when he sits at the dining table.

“Are you up to going to the store?” Mommy asks Dean when he’s drinking his orange juice. Dean nods, still swallowing.

“Can we both get beautiful first?” Dean asks.

“Of course.”

They do their makeup together. This time, since he doesn’t have wet nail polish on his nails, Dean can do his own makeup, but he doesn’t do it as good as Mommy does. The lipstick is smeared all around his mouth, his eyeshadow doesn’t look like it fades into his skin like it did yesterday, and he almost pokes his eye out with the mascara wand. Mommy chuckles at him and then helps him when she’s done with her makeup.

“It takes practice,” Mommy says. “You’ll get good at it one day.”

That makes Dean very happy.

At the store, Mommy guides him to the makeup section. It smells like a lot of perfume, which tickles his nose into a sneeze that gets the attention of a store worker putting creams onto shelves. She stares at Dean for a long time.

The store has a lot of nail polishes. There’s one bottle for every color in the rainbow! Blues, greens, pinks, yellows, colors he doesn’t even have names for. And there’s different kind of polish. There’s the sparkly kind, an even sparklier kind, a flat kind, a shiny kind. There’s so many choices that Dean doesn’t know where to begin.

“You said you wanted blue and purple sparkles, right?” Mommy says. She takes two bottles from the shelf. A deep, sparkly purple and a blue that looks like the sky at night with lots of stars.

“Those are very pretty,” Dean says, grabbing the bottles from his mommy. “So is this one.”

He grabs a yellow that looks like the sun or the bat on Batman’s costume.

“Any others?”

Dean looks at the shelves for a moment then says, “What about eyeshadow? Can we look at that?”

“Sure we can.”

Lots of people stare at Dean in his beautiful makeup while they’re in the store. The person at the checkout counter stares. Dean takes his bag of makeup from her and leaves the store happily.

+

Dean wears his makeup as much as he can. He gets better at putting it on too.

His new brother is born in May. Sammy is really small and red and wrinkly, and he cries a lot, but Dean loves him. He kisses the top of his head like Mommy does to him, and Mommy smiles though she’s still really tired.

When Sammy is brought home, Dean helps Mommy take care of him. Sammy needs lots of sleep though he doesn’t like getting it at night like everyone else, so sometimes Dean sneaks into his nursery to keep him company. Sammy also needs his diaper changed a lot, so Dean throws the diapers away after Mommy’s changed him. And Sammy eats a lot, but when Dean asks his mommy if he can help feed Sammy, Mommy says no.

“You don’t have breasts,” Mommy says. Sammy’s at her chest and sucking on her boob with his eyes closed. He looks really happy. Some milk spills out of his mouth and dribbles down his chin and onto his clothes and Mommy’s.

“Then what are these things?” Dean asks, lifting up his shirt. He pokes at one of the circles on his chest. They look like Mommy’s but they’re much smaller and darker. And that’s where the milk comes from. So why can’t he feed Sammy?

“Those are nipples,” Mommy explains. “Everybody has those.”

“Oh. But why can’t I feed Sammy?”

“Yours are boy nipples. They don’t have milk like girls nipples do. And even if you had girl nipples, you’re way too young to be able to make milk. That doesn’t happen until you’ve reached puberty and had a baby.”

“Oh. What if I get a baby? Will I make milk then?”

Mommy shakes her head. “Sorry, honey.”

For the rest of the day, Dean thinks a lot about what Mommy said and doesn’t speak much, but he watches his mommy and Sammy all the time, like there’s a secret to being able to do what Mommy does for Sammy, and if he looks at them both long enough he’ll figure it out. He wants to take care of Sammy like Mommy is. It isn’t fair.

He gets ready for bed early, and after he’s brushed his teeth and used those wipes to take off his makeup, he takes off his shirt. He has to stand on his stool to see his chest in the mirror so he drags it out from the cabinet under the sink and stands on it.

What’s so different about his nipples? So what if they’re boy nipples? Why can’t he make milk?

Dean grabs his left nipple with his right hand and sees his reflection do the same.

Mommy’s chest is soft and squishy. When Dean squeezes his hand… there’s nothing to grab. His dark purple nails scratch his skin and air and nothing else. Dean’s shoulders fall.

Boy nipples.

Why can’t he have girl nipples?

He has to step onto the highest step on his stool to see the rest of him, and he takes off his pants and underpants. His peepee is an outie. Sammy has an outie peepee too. Mommy takes baths with Dean sometimes and she didn’t have an outie peepee, and it wasn’t hiding under the hair she has between her legs either. So are peepees like nipples? There is a boy kind and a girl kind, and Dean has the boy kind.

Dean takes his peepee and tries to shove it back into himself. Push it in. It won’t move though! It hurts when he tries but he doesn’t stop until his peepee falls out of his hands. He puts his face in his hands and cries.

It isn’t fair! All he wants is an innie peepee.

Maybe if he tears off his peepee instead he’ll get it.

Gripping his peepee, Dean yanks, only to double over and fall off the stool from the pain. He cries louder, and his face burns but the tile his cheek is on is cold. “It’s not fair,” he says to himself, and he grabs at his flat chest, because it hurts less than pulling his peepee. He repeats the words over and over again until Daddy knocks on the door and asks, “Son, are you okay? Is everything all right in there?”

No. Dean is very, very wrong.

“Dean? Dean!” Daddy’s in the bathroom. He falls next to Dean but he doesn’t hurt like Dean does. “Mary!”

Mommy’s footsteps run up the stairs. “John? Dean?”

“In the bathroom! Dean, stop it!”

Daddy’s rough hands grab Dean’s wrists and hold them down on either side of Dean. Hot tears fall down Dean’s face and make Daddy’s face blurry when he leans over Dean. The snot coming from Dean’s nose makes breathing hard except for through his mouth, and when he breathes through his mouth, air comes out all at once and it hurts. He hiccups.

“Oh, Dean,” Mommy says. She falls next to Dean and touches his stupid, flat chest. It stings when she does and new tears and snot fall out of Dean. “What were you doing?”

Dean’s throat is too stuffed of tears and snot for him to answer.

“Get the first aid kit,” Mommy says. “And a glass of water.”

Daddy leaves, so Dean pulls his arms close to himself now that they’re not being held anymore. He uses his arms to hide his wrong chest. Mommy stays and strokes the side of Dean’s head. She sings _Hey Jude_ softly like she does when she tucks Dean into bed. At first Dean can’t really hear her because of the crying sounds he’s making, but they stop by the time Mommy sings, “ _And any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain. Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders._

“ _For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder. Nah nah nah nah….”_

Dean sniffs and blinks until he can see Mommy better.

“Got it!” Daddy returns and says. He falls back onto his knees next to Dean and zips something open.

The next thing Dean knows, Mommy and Daddy are wiping his chest. Dean lifts his head up to see what they’re doing and sees that there’s blood on their wipes. His head falls back down hard on the floor.

They put some kind of cold cream on the scratches before they tape him up with bandaids. Then they sit Dean up with his back on the cupboard under the sink and give him water. It’s in an adult cup, a glass one. Dean holds it in both of his hands to drink.

“John, go start the car,” Mommy says. “We’ll be down in a moment.”

When Daddy is gone, Mommy squeezes Dean’s knee. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”

Dean shakes his head and drinks the last of the water despite his weird feeling stomach. How can he tell his mom what happened when he doesn’t know?

+

“You’re going to be a kindergartener soon! Aren’t you excited?”

“Uh huh!” Dean smiles up at Mommy. He went to daycare when Mommy had a job before Sammy was born, and Mommy says kindergarten will be like daycare but Dean’ll learn all sorts of stuff, like about animals and safety and books. Dean already knows how to read because Mommy and Daddy like to help him read bedtime stories, but Daddy says the school will make Dean an even better reader than he already is.

“Do you want to help me fill out your application?”

“Application?”

“It’s a paper we give to the school so you can go to that school,” Mommy says. “What do you say, pumpkin? Want to help Mommy send you to school?”

“Yes!”

Mommy and Dean sit at the dining table with papers and pens. Sammy is asleep in his special seat, and his feet kick sometimes which is funny.

“He’s dreaming,” Mommy says, “So we’ve gotta be quiet while we do this. Okay?”

“Okay.” Dean grabs one of the pens off the table and Mommy does the same. She puts the pen closer to the paper at the top.

“First thing it’s asking is your name,” she says.

“That’s an easy one! Dean Winchester.”

Mommy smiles at him but she puts her finger to her pink lips for him to be quieter. Dean says sorry in a much quieter voice and looks over at Sammy. He’s still dreaming.

“And when’s your birthday?” Mommy asks next.

“January twenty fourth,” Dean says proudly. Saying January is hard, but last time he had a birthday Daddy helped him say it like normal.

“What year?”

Dean thinks. “This year?”

Mommy laughs. “No, silly. If you were born this year, you’d be like Sammy.”

Dean looks over at Sammy again, still sleeping in his highchair. “I’d be a baby. Babies don’t go to school, Daddy said.”

“That’s right. So how old are you now?”

“Four.” There were four candles on his birthday cake and blew them all out in one breath. Kelly had a birthday before Dean did; she had the same number of candles he did but she didn’t blow them all out in one breath like he did.

“If you minus four years from this year, that’ll be your birthday.”

“It’s 1982 now,” Dean remembers. It’s on their calendar in the kitchen.

“Right. So what’s 1982 minus four?”

Dean thinks long and hard for a long time. “1986?”

“That’s the future, silly!”

“Oh.”

“You were born in 1978,” Mommy says, and she writes it down on the paper.

“Okay.”

Mommy smiles at him. She doesn’t ask the next question right away, so Dean plays with his pen until she does. The pen draws on his hands in blue.

“The next part’s asking if you’re a boy or a girl.”

Dean takes the pen off his hand and looks back up at his mommy. She’s biting her lip, and then she looks at Dean. “Which one are you?”

Dean looks down and plays with his pen some more. “I’m s’posed to be a boy,” he says.

“Oh, honey, it doesn’t matter what you’re supposed to be.” Mommy’s chair squeaks when she gets off to kneel down and hug Dean. His head is on her soft chest and she’s petting his hair. “It matters what you are.”

“But I have boy nipples and a boy peepee,” Dean says. He sniffs and feels his eyes getting wet. “I can’t feed Sammy and I’m supposed to pee standing up like Daddy does.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be a boy,” Mommy says. “Sometimes God makes us wrong.”

Dean wipes his eyes and looks up at Mommy. “But He’s God.”

“Even He can make mistakes,” Mommy says.

Dean buries his head into his mommy’s chest. “I wish I was supposed to be a girl.”

Mommy pats his back until all his tears are gone and his nose isn’t as runny. Her eyes are wet and her eye makeup’s messy like she’s cried too.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she says, and her voice is weird like Dean’s is after he cries and his throat feels funny. “You can be a girl if you want. It doesn’t matter what body God put you in. If you want to be a girl, you can be a girl. That's who you are.”

That makes Dean happy. He sniffs again but there isn’t much in his nose. “I can get girl nipples like you and feed Sammy?”

Mommy smiles and strokes Dean’s hair. “One day, you can. Sammy’ll be too big to feed, but you can get your own baby and feed them.”

“I want that,” Dean says, nodding.

“Would you like to finish this?” Mommy asks, pointing to the application papers. “Your part is almost done. Just a few more things.”

Dean nods again and Mommy sits back on her chair and picks her pen back up. She puts an X in a small box that says _GIRL_ next to it.

“You know,” Mommy says, “I named you after my grandmother. Her name was Deanna.”

Dean nods again and smiles. “That’s a pretty name.”

+

Mommy and Daddy have a fight that night when Deanna goes to bed. She can hear them say her name. Mommy uses the one Deanna decided she wanted earlier, and Daddy calls her Dean still. Mommy told Deanna that Daddy might not be happy at first, but he’ll come around. Deanna hopes it’s soon, because their fight sounds really ugly, and she doesn’t like it when her parents fight.

Sammy doesn’t like it, either. He keeps on screaming. Deanna goes into his room and tells him it’ll be all right. Sammy likes it when Deanna is around, but he still doesn’t like the fighting.

The fighting stops when the door slams and shakes the entire house. Sammy is surprised quiet, but he starts crying again when the pictures on his wall stop moving. Deanna strokes his little head to soothe him.

Footsteps come up the stairs, light like Mommy’s, not heavy like Daddy’s. Deanna freezes because she’s not supposed to be in Sammy’s room after bed, but when Mommy comes into the room she thanks Deanna for staying with him.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says, placing her hand on Deanna’s shoulder. Sammy sees his mommy and he stops crying. “Your daddy doesn’t understand that you want to be a girl.”

“Why not?” Deanna asks.

Mommy breathes out. “He thinks that if you have a boy peepee that you’re supposed to be a boy. He’s a little narrow-minded like that.”

“What does that mean?”

Mommy doesn’t answer for a moment, but it looks like she’s trying. “Remember the Green Eggs and Ham story?” she asks.

“With Sam-I-Am,” Deanna says, reaching down to touch Sammy in his crib. Sammy giggles and grabs Deanna’s finger in his little hand so tightly that Deanna can’t pull away.

“Uh huh. And you know how Sam-I-Am tries to get the other one to eat the green eggs and ham?” Mommy asks. Deanna nods. “Well, he doesn’t eat the green eggs and ham because he’s narrow-minded. He’s never had green eggs and ham before, and he’s afraid of trying them.”

Deanna feels scared. “Daddy’s afraid of me?”

Mommy shakes her head. “No, pumpkin. He just doesn’t understand you, and he’s afraid of having his beliefs changed. He’s very stubborn.”

“Stubborn like Sammy is to sleep at night?”

“And stubborn like how he doesn’t want to let go of your finger.”

Mommy smiles down at Deanna and Sammy. She touches Sammy, and Sammy gives Deanna her finger back. Mommy picks Sammy up and holds him in her arms next to her chest.

“Your daddy’ll understand soon,” Mommy says, sitting down in the rocking chair. Deanna stands next to her and watches Sammy’s eyes close and open. “At the end of Green Eggs and Ham, what happens?”

“He eats the green eggs and ham,” Deanna says. Remembering this, she starts to smile. “And he likes them, Sam-I-Am!”

Mommy smiles. “That’s right. It’ll just take some time. Daddy might still call you Dean and talk about you like a boy, but he’ll realize that’s not who you are soon.”

“Okay.”

Deanna nods then, and Mommy laughs.

“Go to bed, pumpkin. You’ve had a long day. Thank you for taking care of Sammy for me.”

“One day I’ll be able to feed him like you too! Well, not Sammy, ‘cause you said he’d be too big, right?”

“That’s right. Goodnight, Deanna. See you in the morning.”

Hearing her new name in Mommy’s voice makes Deanna so happy that she grins. She kisses her mommy’s cheek and Sammy’s head before going to bed. She’s still smiling when she falls asleep.

Six days later, before Daddy leaves for work, he kisses Deanna on the cheek while she’s having breakfast.

“Bye, Deanna,” he says. “You be a good girl for your mom, okay? I love you.”

Deanna gasps and then grins. She looks up at Daddy and sees him smiling down at her a little bit.

Deanna wraps her arms around him. “Love you too, Daddy.”

+

November 2nd, 1982

What wakes Deanna up isn’t her mommy or daddy knocking on the door. Instead, it’s the smell of smoke, like that one time Mommy burned the meatloaf because she left it in the oven for too long. But when Deanna pushes her curtains away, it’s night. Why’s Mommy cooking at nighttime?

Deanna rubs her eye as she goes to her door. She still feels a little sleepy but she needs to know what why it smells like smoke.

“Mary!”

It’s Daddy’s scream. He only sounds that scared when he’s having nightmares and he shouts in his sleep.

Deanna opens the door and enters the hall. There’s a lot of smoke out here and it hurts to breathe. Deanna coughs and her eyes water. “Daddy!”

Out of the smoke, Daddy appears in front of her. He puts Sammy in her arms and shouts, “Take your brother outside as fast as you can. Don’t look back. Go, Deanna, go!”

Deanna’s heart beats faster than it does when she and Daddy play football together and she runs really fast. Deanna nods and does what Daddy told her to. Sammy cries all the way down the stairs and even when they’ve made it to the yard. The house is glowing inside.

Deanna stands to watch it until Daddy runs out of the house and picks her up. From over his shoulder, she sees the window of Sammy’s room burst and fire take over the house.

“Where’s Mommy?” Deanna cries when Daddy stops in the middle of the street, breathing hard and heavily. There are neighbors who woke up from the noise and are standing on their porches in their robes and nightclothes. Someone shouts to call 911.

“She’s gone,” Daddy says. He sounds empty. Not like anything. He looks up at the house. “She’s gone.”

“But she’ll be back, right?”

Daddy swallows. “No. She won’t be coming back.”

“What do you mean?” Deanna feels tears in her eyes and her voice is squeaking. She trembles, scared that she understands but wanting to be wrong. She needs to be wrong. Please.

Sirens whine. The firefighters are coming. They’ll put out the fire and bring out Mommy and she’ll feed Sammy, because he’s crying and when he cries sometimes he needs to be fed, and Deanna can’t do that yet, someday soon but not yet.

Daddy doesn’t answer her.

The three of them sit on the hood of the Impala while the firemen hose the fire. Police ask Daddy what happened and he tells them. Sammy was making a fuss so he went to investigate, and when he got there he saw Mommy on the ceiling, and she burst into flames. The two police officers thank Daddy for his time and say they’re sorry for their loss.

Mommy is lost.

Another person approaches and tells Daddy he’ll take care of his sons because they might’ve gotten hurt in the fire. Daddy nods and stands up to follow the person before Deanna can say that she’s not a son. Why didn’t Daddy tell the man she’s not a boy? She wants to tell the man leading them to the back of the large yellow truck and she wants to ask her daddy, but she can’t speak. No words come out of her mouth.

Deanna is put on a bed with wheels. Daddy holds Sammy and watches.

“I’m a paramedic. I’m going to make sure you’re alright, okay?

“What’s your name?”

_Deanna Winchester._

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. I’ll ask simple yes or no questions, and you can reply by nodding or shaking your head.

“Are you hurting anywhere?”

_My chest._

“Does your head hurt?”

_Chest_.

“Your arms or legs?”

_Chest_.

“Your torso? This part of you?”

_Chest._

“Would you mind if I took off your shirt to examine you?”

He looks over at Daddy. Deanna doesn’t. The red and blue police lights reflect in rain puddles on the street.

“Okay, I’m taking off your shirt. It’s going to be okay. I’m just trying to help you. I need to make sure you aren’t hurt and if you are that you get treated.”

The man can see her boy nipples. “I don’t see any external injuries. No cuts, no bruises, no burns. Your ribs aren’t broken. Does your stomach hurt? Do you want to throw up? Does it hurt to breathe?”

Deanna falls forward and cries a new set of tears. Her arms wrap around her middle. The pain doesn’t go away though she tries to crush it. Her heart feels like it’s dying.

A blanket is put over her shoulders and a hand pats her back. “It’ll be okay. Everything will be fine.”

How does he know that?

 

 


End file.
